Lata Roy's vegetable stall

About

Lata Roy of Guptamari village in Botiaghata upazila, Khulna, has run a small stall beside the Khulna-Chalna highway for about three years, selling vegetables and produce from her own and her neighbours' fields from morning till evening. One year, when her bangi (muskmelon) crop fetched no price at market, she stopped going to the haat and sat by the road to sell it; passers-by responded, so she put up a tin-roofed stall. Lata, her husband and other family members grow vegetables on the banks of the fish gher beside their house; four other branches of the Roy family also supply the stall, and Lata keeps accounts in a notebook, keeping a small share and paying them in the evening. The stall sells pumpkin flowers, cucumber, yardlong beans, bitter gourd, lemon, fig, papaya, ghatkol, taro, pumpkin, various greens, kalmi stalks, chicken eggs, tamarind, palmyra fruit and palmyra pulp. Most customers are from the city; prices follow nearby market rates, and Lata explains how to cook unfamiliar vegetables. Sales are Tk 500 a day or more.

Products and services

• Seasonal vegetables

  Cucumber, yardlong beans, bitter gourd, fig, papaya, ghatkol, taro, pumpkin, pumpkin flowers; at local market rates

• Leafy greens

  Helencha, malancha, telakucha greens and kalmi stalks

• Chicken eggs

• Palmyra fruit and ripe palmyra pulp

• Lemons and ripe tamarind

Address and hours

To learn or to work here

• Visitors welcome